Phantom Kaito
by LeonaWriter
Summary: What's this? A DeathFic and not intentionally morbid and full of depression? "Somehow I should have known that a thing like being dead wouldn't stop you from making trouble, Kuroba." You can't keep a good kaitou down, even if it's down six feet.
1. The Beating of His Wings

And I Think I'll Stay Right Here

AN: Do not be put off by the beginning. The tone does get lighter. This is the one I wrote a prompt for in Manycases1truth. Written for kicks and giggles.

Chapter One – The Beating of His Wings

----

The heist had been normal.

Normal, that is, from the Kaitou Kid's point of view – in which case, absolutely abstract in almost anyone else's. There had been acrobatics, hang gliding indoors, hide and seek in the dark, pink smoke and pink sleeping gas, Nakamori shouting and, of course, his favourite game of dogpile on the kaitou. It would probably leave him grinning for hours, days even, leaving Aoko steaming mad when she saw his face next in class.

But now. . . now, all was quiet. Except for the natural sounds of the riverbank he had set down next to that wasn't all too far away from decent civilisation in a distant corner of a park near to Ekoda. In the moonlight, the Kid seemed to shine with some sort of otherworldly presence, face pale with luminescence and the light of the ruby that he had stolen glimmering away against his monocle's glass.

The Kid sighed, lowering his arm with the gem in it back down to his side. The sound of his breath made hardly any sound at all in the still post-midnight, early morning air, his white suit rustling more like the wind through the brush than anything more human.

Only his cape with it's distinct flapping as though of slow wings would alert even the most sharp of ears to the fact that he was not simply a mirage.

His sigh was for the fact that, like for most rubies, it was simply impossible to tell whether or not it had another red stone shining forth from inside it. He would have to give it back another day.

A sound out of place, and he was whipping around, hand going to card gun hidden on his person and Poker Face sliding back down to mask everything to Kid's look once more.

A rustle, not of any animal that should live around these parts – the most he'd seen had been foxes and tanuki, and they were hardly large enough to make noises such as those. Or curses, or –

Or the sound of a gun firing, before he'd had a chance to see where it was coming from, he had the strange feeling as though it wasn't from the same place as where the noises had been, but it hardly mattered now – he hadn't gone to that heist prepared to be shot at, and he had to fight himself to keep from falling.

He was in the middle of an open area. With a bullet wound that was bleeding onto the grass. The glider was no option at all – if he fainted while however many feet up in the air, he'd fall to his death, and if he didn't then he'd still be a prime target.

Pain lancing through him and breath coming harder, the Kaitou Kid began to run for his life.

His heart began to pound, blood rushing from his head and to the place where he'd been shot. It had been in a bad place. . .

He would survive this, though. He was sure he could. He'd gone through worse, hadn't he? Been shot before? But then. . . the gem had been in his pocket before, hadn't i? He wasn't sure, anymore.

In the distance, he heard more loud bangs.

Or was that the time when Shiro had been hurt. . . that time, he'd gotten away too, hadn't he. . .

The moon was going away. She winked at him once, his own mischief reflected back at him, before she hid away, and he was left alone once more.

Something deep inside rebelled against that. Against the slightest fear that he wouldn't make it through. He had to, didn't he . . ? Make it through . . ?

But the moon wasn't there any more, and had no answers for him.

-----

He came to not on a grassy plain, not at the last place he remembered, and not even in a hospital ward. No, the Kaitou Kid had to come to right in the middle of a hallway. And not just any hallway, oh no. One of the Ekoda police station hallways, distinct to only this building by the sheer amount of glitter still pervading walls, floor and ceiling from the letter the note had been sent in for the heist.

Not to mention that there were notices up on cork boards at regular intervals, some including the deductions that had led them to the scene of the earlier crime, some of official notices, some of internal messages and adverts, some of personal photographs and doodles.

The Kid frowned. There were a number of things . . . off, with this scene. For one thing, he should be in a hospital, and he wasn't. For another, there should be Task Force members guarding him like nobody's business, and there weren't. Not to mention that usually there were anti-Kid posters up all over the walls, some even made by Aoko herself, and it was weird. Weirder than any of the other things he'd listed. All of the areas where they'd been looked as though they'd had something torn down.

In a dreamlike state yet still using the stealth that came naturally to him when wearing the white suit and hat of the Kid, he drifted off in the direction of the main bullpen, where he should be able to find Nakamori.

It was odd. Sometimes, he had dropped by – just to have a glance, or to give back the gem once he'd checked it – after the heists. The station was always, _always_ rowdy and noisy and crowded. Or at least, it should have been.

It wasn't.

The halls were clear, and he didn't pass a single person, even though he could hear peoples' voices growing steadily clearer and louder as he got closer to that main area of open offices and desks.

Once he'd found someplace to watch them from without being seen, he could recognise each and every single one of the men and women in the room. None of them were talking, and if someone did, then it was in a whisper, an aside. They looked . . . upset.

No, more than upset. Devastated. But he couldn't figure out why they would look like that. The only reason he could think of that would band them all together like that was him. But he was right here! He almost thought to jump out and startle them into chasing him around the station, just to stop them looking like that. It was scaring him.

A door opened and shut. Everyone – including the Kid – turned to look to see who had come in. It was the Inspector, with an unreadable look on his face. They kept watching. Waiting. Though what for, the Kid didn't know.

"I saw it." The Inspector's words were harsh and grating. "It was him. I was wrong. And when I get that bastard that did this to him, I'm going to make him _pay_." A snap resounded throughout the room, and from where he was, the Kid could see two halves of a pencil fall to the floor. "The Kid might've been a criminal, but he didn't deserve that."

Kid? But that was him. How could they be talking about him like that when he was there? But of course, they didn't know he was there. He was still hidden. On a spur of the moment, split-second decision, he unfolded himself and walked with all the confidence he didn't feel right into Nakamori-keibu's line of sight.

No one said anything. No one saw him. The one nearest to him shivered. The Kid frowned through his Poker Face, worried and confused. What Nakamori had just said ran its way through his mind again. ..._bastard that did this to him . . . might've been a criminal, but he didn't deserve that._ Something clicked. He wished it hadn't.

His wounds weren't hurting. In fact, he couldn't even feel them at all. He patted down his clothes, looking for some streak of red that would make sure he wasn't hallucinating but found nothing. He was about to start panicking – a very un-Kidlike behaviour, but if it worked, it worked – when a thought slapped him in the face like Aoko with a fish.

_I must be having some sort of out of body experience,_ he rationalised. _I mean, what else could it be...?_

"Damn," said one of the Task Force men. "He was so. . . so young. . ."

_I'm still young!_ He wanted to shout out, _I'm still here!_

Nakamori spat out an expletive.

"I damn well know how young he was! The kid grew up with my daughter!"

All previous activity in the Kid's brain ceased to function. Everything still remaining focused on what the Inspector had just said. It wasn't true. It wasn't possible. No way in friggin' hell it could be true that the Inspector had somehow figured out Kid's civilian identity.

But apparently, there was.

"I should have realised something like it a long time ago," the Inspector continued. "But it didn't. It took me seeing him. It. Lying there." Unable to hold it in any longer, the Inspector hit the wall, and his hit was strong enough to leave a dent. Several of the men looked away, but none of them had flinched.

One of them, one of the younger members of the Task Force who was more experienced than his fellows due to having joined not long after leaving school and had in fact been one of Kaito's sempai for a year, had his fist shaking even, as though he wanted to follow his officer's example.

"I – I knew him. He's – he was, always so full of mischief. I thought . . . he was so much like his father."

A lot of the members of the Task Force had known Kuroba Touichi. Because Kaito's father had been good friends, through irony, with Nakamori Ginzo.

Kid wanted his mind to shy away from all of the times the word '_was'_ was used about him. He wasn't a was. He was an is. Present tense. Here and now.

Wasn't he?

Nakamori took a long puff of his pipe.

"Too damn much like his father, I say." He leant hard against the door, not meeting anyone's gaze. One hand raked its way through short-cropped yet wild hair. "Both of them died far too young."

The Kid reeled. _No. No, no, no, no, no!_ _It wasn't supposed to go like that – it wasn't_. He was supposed to be having an out of body experience, able to go back into it once he was healed up well enough that he wouldn't just die anyway, probably with the incentive of a kiss from a fair lady – hopefully with all mops in the hospital confiscated – and then he'd wake up. And they'd argue. And she'd find a mop anyway somehow, and he'd let her hit him even if he was still really badly hurt, because she'd deserve it, and he'd get out somehow, and he'd carry on somehow, and he'd. . . he'd. . .

_Somehow, this can't be happening._

Not thinking, he ran towards the door the Inspector had been leaning against – the man was now seated with the rest, who were offering their commiserations, but he didn't need them, he was _right there_, damn it – and through it, and somehow he'd forgotten to open it, but he was through, and he was running, and running felt good. Running felt very good.

Pavements, people, streetlamps, buildings, trees – all of them blurred in the corner of his vision. All he could see was his road ahead of him, the path he was taking without his mind being rationally in control.

It was where he had always gone when he hadn't been able to hide everything under Poker Face before he had become Kid. He had gone to Aoko's.

In the night, it looked just as inviting as it always had done. Yet he didn't go by the front door, instead swerving to the side and finding that tree just there that had grown up right next to Aoko's window, perfect for a thief to climb in through. Or a younger Kaito, when her father wouldn't have killed him for trying something with his daughter. He still did it occasionally, though.

Aoko was still awake. Undoubtedly, waiting for her father. She was wearing cute flannel pyjamas, and was clutching a very battered-looking Kid plushie which she had professed to have made herself – for the supreme purpose of beating him up. From the looks of things, it hadn't just been her beating up his likeness.

And yet she was clutching it – him, a part of him that was buried deep down said, mischief making the rest of him want to blush – tight. As though she knew that something was wrong.

He tried to speak. To say her name. To tell her that he was here, that it was all right, that no matter what her father said, he was all right.

But he couldn't. His mouth would open and close but he wouldn't say anything. A painful lump in his throat prevented him. As though he were afraid that if he did speak and she didn't even look up at him with fire in her eyes, then all would be lost, and what the Inspector had said would be true.

She sobbed, and he couldn't cope any longer. He coughed, first once and then again to get that lump out of his throat.

She didn't look up. She must have thought it was just a bird.

"Aoko."

His voice came out as the Kid's still, for which he winced, knowing that it would only make matters worse, but he couldn't help it. If she would only respond.

She didn't.

"Aoko – look at me." Not a twitch. "Please." Another sob. "I bet I can predict what panties you're gonna wear tomorrow!"

Absolutely nothing, when there should have been towering infernos of rage.

In a pique of despair, the Kid let go of the branch he had been holding onto without even realising it, and fell softly to the welcoming earth.

_Falling, falling and his head hit something hard, scratching against his face, monocle still on, hat? Fallen off elsewhere. . ._

He reeled. He remembered. They were right. They were all right. He shouldn't be here still.

Those shots that he had thought had been in the distance had been, when examined under the eye of detachment, much, much closer to home. He simply hadn't been able to feel anymore.

Mechanically, he brushed himself off – unnecessary, he wasn't able to pick anything up, but just a habit – and stood up. All right. What did he have?

Well, for one thing, he was apparently dead. Supposed to have gone and joined the choir invisible – and he supposed he had to be glad for the maestro up there that it was going to be him and not Kudo, that guy could be scary with that voice of his – but somehow, he hadn't. He'd have to look into that at some point.

Did he have anything else?

Well, he could still climb trees. He could still hold onto things. He could fall and not feel pain, or even really fall at all.

He. . . was still dressed as Kid. Complete with Kid's hat, suit, cape and monocle. Right down to the white loafers. Even the hang glider was still a familiar weight against his back, even if it was probably useless by now.

He supposed that if he had all of that, he also had everything else, as well. Including the clothes that would change him back into Kuroba Kaito and out of the character of Kid.

Not that that would help any, now that he was dead and his identity had been blown sky high. It would probably be all over the papers by tomorrow morning. He could just see it now – Kaitou Kid Actually High Schooler Who Went To Classes With Inspector's Daughter.

He wondered if there was any way that he could stop that from happening before his mom became Their next target.

There probably wasn't though; he had tried and tried and tried to get people to notice him all night. All without success. Or at the very least, if you didn't call one case of the shivers a success, if he was right. Aoko hadn't even known that he was there.

Which had both hurt like hell and felt comforting at the same time. She didn't like ghost stories, after all.

With one last look back at the Nakamori house, up at her window which was still lit up like an oasis of light in the darkness, he started to walk away. Home. Mom was probably worried sick –

And had every right to be. He wasn't all right. Far from it, and if he appeared to her now, then it would only end up making things worse. She'd already lost his dad. He didn't think he could bear to see her face when she realised that she had lost him, too.

So he just walked. Aimlessly. All around town. That's the place where he would go with Aoko just to chill out. That's the place he'd go to get his midnight snacks after a heist, always with the excuse that he'd been over to watch, not participate. It had always worked, or the proprietor had also been a Kid fan. They were going to be upset, either way. There was the shop where he'd go to get his new books, and unlike what Aoko often said, he was a voracious reader. He just didn't like girls' manga. Contrary to probable popular belief, he didn't just read texts on magic tricks, either – it was best, he had thought from a young age, to know as much as possible about as much as possible. Then, you could come up with something really weird, and everyone would be in awe. Not to mention, he had learnt French for the sheer pleasure of reading the Lupin stories in their original language. That was the place where he had done this, and that was the place where he had done that.

Without realising it, he had started to make himself out to be a ghost to everyone already, and so far only Nakamori and his men knew that he was dead.

Abruptly, he laughed, and the sound shocked him. It was the first time that he had laughed since all of this had started. And he couldn't help it. It was all so. . . ironic. They called him Kaitou, and Kaitou he was. In all possible interpretations. He was a mystery even unto himself, a phantom to everyone and everything. A shade. A spirit. And he was still a thief.

And so – if he was going to go on from that line of thought, then what had he stolen, and what would he steal? He somehow doubted that the ruby he'd had in his hands prior to his death had been the Pandora Gem. If it had been, then he would still be alive and immortal, not dead and immortal.

He shook his head. That second one just sounded wrong.

Still – where to go? He smirked, hiding his insecurities behind the motion. Where else to go when there aren't any more places to which you can move forward, except back where you came from?

Back to the beginning. Back to the Police station.

It took him somewhat less time to get back there than it had to run from it, and yet how that worked he wasn't sure and he didn't think he wanted to know just yet.

He slipped in, trying to avoid touching people – it made him feel ever so slightly nauseous to see that all they could feel of him was that weird shiver, not anything physical at all – and mostly succeeding.

No one saw him. No one took any notice of him. People seemed to look straight through him, giving him the strange feeling of not actually being there even though he knew that he was.

When he finally got there, the bullpen of offices was much emptier than it had been before. In fact, there was only the group that had been around the table, Nakamori himself, and a couple of others. He recognised them all. None of them saw him. They didn't even go cross-eyed.

Feeling more and more out of place and drifting like a leaf on the wind, he jumped deftly on top of one of their filing cabinets to watch and listen with sad affection. More and more he felt like an outsider, looking in on what had used to be his own life.

Nakamori was saying something – something about how none of them had to go back to work for anywhere up to a week. He said that he wasn't, and that he was going to spend the time with his daughter. Kid silently agreed. Aoko would need her father more than ever, now.

He never saw the door open and close softly, but he did hear it, faintly. Saw the gathered police look over at the newcomer, but not the newcomer themself. If they spoke, it was quiet enough not to be heard by this particular ghost. Everyone else towered over them just enough for him not to be able to see them to begin with, too.

Something brown flickered and caught the Kid's eye. Something brown, which was usually attached to something – or someone – blond. Kid cursed.

The something brown suddenly sat up as though he had been given a strong static shock.

"Hakuba-kun." The Inspector's voice, though gravelly and rough, was as close to gentle as Kaito had ever heard it outside of when the man had been talking with Aoko just after his wife had died. "You don't have to be here."

"I'll argue the opposite. I do have to."

"You don't look well."

The rest of the Task Force present agreed with the Inspector, all wanting to look after the youngest, who had been at the heist. Who had been Kaito's friend and the Kid's rival.

The movements of the uniformed men allowed the Kid to see the blond detective properly for the first time. Nakamori had been right. Hakuba looked far too pale, his eyes unfocused. . .

No. Wait. Rewind. Unfocused? He'd been watching people he was invisible to for too long. He grinned, an ear-to-ear Cheshire Cat smile.

Just as he'd hoped, a feeling that had almost deserted him, Hakuba seemed to pale even further, eyes widening.

Whooping, the Kaitou Kid jumped down from the filing cabinet and waved vigorously over at the blond detective. Then, unable to hold himself in any longer, he began an acrobatic series of backflips around the room while Hakuba himself sat tentatively down and pleaded a headache coming on.

Someone could see him – it didn't _matter_ that it was Hakuba. Someone could _see_ him!

-----

AN: I had to end it there, rather than earlier or later. This way, it shows a good note at the end : ) The title's from this: _The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land, you may almost hear the beating of his wings_. -- John Bright (1811–1889)

Not all of them are going to be this angst-y and morbid. In fact, as the first one, this is the odd one out.


	2. Suddenly I See

And I Think I'll Stay Right Here

Chapter Two – Suddenly I See

AN: There _is_ angst. And lo, there is also humour.

-----

It had been bad enough at the heist, where the Kaitou Kid had been his usual annoying self, making complete fools out of them and even racing away with the jewel, a large ruby that had only just gone on display in the museum, laughter echoing through the halls as he left by glider, Saguru panting on the roof at a failed attempt to catch even the edges of the Kid's cloak.

Things had gone from bad enough to just plain bad when, not even an hour and a half later, Nakamori had phoned him, saying that the Kid had been found dead. Shot dead, with multiple bullet wounds and various other injuries. The gem had been found nearby, apparently thrown to the ground not far from where Kid had been lying.

The words had been spoken with such a monotone lifelessness that the British detective had found himself feeling ill just from hearing them. He had wanted to deny it. Wanted to slam the phone down and say it wasn't happening.

Nobody got hurt on Kid heists – especially not the Kid. But there Nakamori had been, calling to tell him that the Kid was dead out of consideration of the fact that the two had seemed to be rivals, of a sort.

He still hadn't wanted to believe. And then, sounding as though he hadn't wanted to say the words, Nakamori had told him that it was also because Hakuba knew Kaito-kun from school, and didn't deserve to find out both things the same time the next morning at school.

He had hung up after saying that there was going to be a Task Force debriefing in a couple of hours, and that he didn't have to go.

He had listened to the beeping tone coming from the phone for a whole minute before putting the thing down.

It had to be a prank. It just had to be. And yet when he got out his police radio and tuned it in to the right frequency, he had been bombarded with orders issued and the occasional bout of swearing as they rushed around the two crime scenes, trying to find something, some kind of clue. Unable to stand it for much longer, he had turned the thing off and started to pace, unable to keep still.

So, in the end, he had turned up at the Ekoda police station dressed exactly the same as he had been earlier, only a lot more worn down. He was greeted by sympathetic glances and looks by everyone who saw him, but he ignored them for the most part. For the first time, Nakamori couldn't be heard all the way down the hall and beyond. It was almost freakish.

He was welcomed in by those still in the bullpen once he got there, but though his attention was soon drawn to Nakamori, who was speaking, it wasn't caught for very long. He blamed it on his denial.

Because a white-suited figure was sitting on top of a filing cabinet, not far behind where Nakamori was, even though the older man – and make that everyone else in the room besides him – seemed not to be able to see the apparition. It seemed to be fiddling with one of the folds of the oddly pristine white cloak. The strangest thing about it all was that he could still see the rest of the room through him.

Saguru blinked. Shook his head, blond hair now sticking out in places in a rather ungainly fashion.

The apparition didn't even have the courtesy to disappear when his eyes opened again, or even fade or go more see-through. It . . . the Kid. . . was still there. When all the facts and all the reports indicated that he should be not too far away in the police morgue.

"Hakuba-kun." The Inspector's voice cut through his morbid musings easily. He looked up, disconcerted. "You don't have to be here."

"I'll argue the opposite," he said, knowing that the work would hopefully cause enough of a distraction for as long as it took to get his life back on kilter again. "I do have to." Besides, this was about Kuroba.

"You don't look well."

Did he? He hadn't noticed. He wondered whether all people felt the way he did and experienced hallucinations when told of the death of someone they knew. Yet plenty of people agreed with the Inspector; he looked pale. He can't have had time yet to eat since the heist. He needed some coffee – no, make that tea. His eyes were unfocused. . .

No, they weren't. He was just looking at something – someone – that no one else could see. He opened his mouth to say so but then closed it again, knowing that they would all think that he was going crazy, and he didn't quite think that he wanted psychiatrists and therapists after him like detectives after the Kid.

A bad analogy, now, but it worked.

His imagination must have been better than he would usually give it credit for, because as the officers moved around and gave him a proper look at his hallucination's face, his hallucination had seemed to be looking in his direction. Looking at him.

Looking straight at him, almost in the eye, and Saguru could almost feel the blood rush away from his face, his eyes widen in shock as the apparition started to first smile, then smirk, and then do a full-out Kaitou Kid _grin_ – right at him.

Something about this was very strange indeed, he found himself thinking as he pleaded for somewhere in the middle of the room where he could sit down, not wanting to get in the thief's way as he performed his acrobatics around the room. _Figments of one's own imagination are not supposed to be able to do things like that_. And even if they were – which they shouldn't – then he didn't think that he had that much of a masochistic streak in him for some part of him to want to see this. Some of those angles were just plain wrong.

Not to mention that if it was his imagination, his imagination was not only supplying the visuals, but also the audio. Which was just as loud as Kid's normal laughter or speech, except that he didn't think that he had ever heard Kid _whooping_ before.

Sayaka-san, who had been one of the ones who had been concerned about him just moments before, now bent over and asked if he was all right in a low voice.

_No_, he wanted to cry out, _I am not all right. The Kid is dead. Which means that Kuroba is dead. And here I am going insane because I never even managed to find out why he stole, and I'll never have a chance to now, and I can still hear him even when I close my eyes!_

But he didn't. He knew exactly how that would end up. With the officer assuming that he was referring to the heist, and somehow he would let slip that he wasn't, and he didn't want that, and he wasn't even sure if he did want the idiot to shut up because if he did, then it would mean that he was really gone and that just wasn't acceptable.

Still, he didn't know how he did it, but he went with a pleading truth.

"I've got a headache," he said plaintively, feeling like a lost child. Not something he particularly enjoyed.

Sayaka suggested that perhaps he should go out, take a breather, that he didn't have to come back to headquarters until he felt ready. Saguru didn't think that it was the headquarters that was the problem, but agreed anyway, wondering what on earth was going on with the world. He left on his own, though, not simply because he couldn't truly care for company, but also because he wouldn't have quite known what to say to the potential watcher if they had seen him watching what should have been an empty patch of air yet had instead contained the still bouncing image of Phantom Thief, with a new emphasis on the Phantom part of his name.

-----

It wasn't long until the Kid tired of simply bouncing alongside his favourite pet detective and started to wonder just how far this seeing-him thing went.

He made his way in front of Hakuba, so that he was walking backwards to face the blond, who came up short, almost looking as though he had been about to fall over. The Kid snickered, Hakuba glared, Kid snickered some more. And proceeded to continue walking backwards in front of the detective, much to the blond's annoyance as he found out when he started to walk again.

This went on for a while, neither speaking yet moving with what could be called perfect harmony with each other, neither coming into contact with the other.

Then, still walking in their strange rhythm, the Kid raised first one white gloved hand and then another, waving them in Hakuba's face. Eyes widening, the blond stopped dead, Kid still walking back two paces before halting himself and bounding back.

When the detective still hadn't moved moments later, the Kid began to grow concerned. He didn't like to think that he had inadvertently broken his favourite detective's mind. For one thing, he was the one who saw him right now, and if he just disappeared, then the Kid was going to go back to just being a faded out ghost. For another, he was genuinely concerned. He had forgotten in his exuberance at being noticed by someone he knew so well that Hakuba was such a scientific person, who had never once indicated that he held any other belief in the supernatural except that it was all a load of rubbish.

And now here the Kid was, disproving all of those theories and shaking Hakuba right out of his safe little world where the only kinds of magic possible were the tricks he'd seen Kaito and the Kid perform.

"O-oi, Hakuba? Tantei-san? You all right?"

Instant reaction. A sharp hiss of breath and a clenching of fists. Yet somehow the blond's eyes remained riveted on his incorporeal form, wide in fascinated horror.

"All right?" the detective echoed. "You. Asking me that. You _died_. You died, and I'm talking with something that might be but in all probability isn't a figment of my imagination, and you're asking _me_ if I'm all right?"

Oh. Well, there was that. . .

Hakuba turned his face away, and made to walk on, manoeuvring himself around the Kid as he did so. Once again, the thief had to move to catch up.

"O-oi, where're you going?"

"Home," said the detective shortly, not stopping.

"Huh. That's all right. I can deal with that."

"You are not stepping foot inside my house."

"I won't step foot, then. I'll see if I can float."

"You are not stepping foot or floating inside my house, then."

"What about crawling? Or-!"

"No."

The Kid's temper flared.

"Damn it, Hakuba! I'm not leaving you alone!"

Hakuba stopped, breathing heavily.

"What."

"Do you _want_ me to leave you alone?"

The Kid could hear the hitch in the blond's breathing even if he couldn't see the look on his face. Damn it all, he didn't want to be alone again.

". . . No."

It was said so quietly that the Kid was half uncertain that he had even heard it. But Hakuba had said it, hadn't he? He wondered what, exactly, that meant. He had never before entertained the notion that the British detective would be one to worry all that much over him, and that he would prefer to have him out of his life if at all possible. It was strange to hear him say that no, he didn't want the Kaitou Kid out of his life.

Still both stood there, looking at some sort of middle distance rather than at the other, watching the houses they had stopped in front of and listening as police siren after police siren rushed frantically back and forth.

"Good," said Kid, before either of them could think up anything more depressing or even morbid to add to the conversation. "Then that means I can come in with you, right?"

Hakuba's eye-roll was practically audible, and the Kid snickered. He took it as a yes, but he would have followed Hakuba in anyway even if he wasn't allowed. He'd have thought of a way.

The rest of the way was familiar enough to both of them to pass fairly quickly, but the journey wasn't short enough to pass without its fair share of uneasy silences, and broken off sentences where one had used or had been about to use the words 'is' or 'are' instead of 'was' when it came to Kaito or the Kid. Then, of course, there had been the time when the woman had just got back from what looked like night shift work, and had been staring at Hakuba for a long time before either boy realised why, at which point the blond shut up and started to turn a rather bright shade of magenta for being thought to talk to himself in the middle of the night to the early morning.

Every so often, they simply forgot that the Kid couldn't be seen and heard by just everybody, not anymore. Simply forgot that the thief's body was in some morgue on some table somewhere, unmasked and unmonocled, freed of hat and not likely to go back. Sometimes, it even seemed as though they forgot that one was a detective, and one was a thief, despite the fact that they were still dressed for their parts.

It was never completely forgotten, though. Although both Kaito and the Kid were tactile, the Kid never attempted to touch even the slightest bit of Hakuba's clothes.

The door was opened, and Hakuba went inside, holding it open just a moment longer than was necessary, the kaitou slipping in during that same moment.

The blond headed straight away towards the nearest and biggest living area, and once he got there he threw off his hat and his overcoat, shoes having been left haphazard in the hall just after having opened the door. He let himself fall with a hard thump onto one of the soft-looking plush chairs, drawing his knees onto the chair with him.

The Kaitou Kid, feeling as though he was intruding on an intensely private moment, hung back at the doorway, uncertain.

"You can come in, you know."

Once again, the words were said softly, but this time also with an air of distraction. Once the Kid was standing a few feet away, sharp blue eyes pierced transparent blue eyes.

"You should be impossible. Never mind the fact that no one can understand you – you should be impossible. And yet there you are. I can't just eliminate you from the equation, because you're still there. Holmes never had a problem like this."

The last was said with a laugh bordering on hysteria, and the Kid frowned, realising that the stuck up British blond had waited until they weren't likely to be overheard by anyone that mattered to have his freak out session.

"Holmes," he pointed out in a level voice, "was a fictitious character. So, for that matter, was Lupin."

"And this is supposed to be real life?"

"It may not always be fair, but it sure is stranger than fiction," the thief quipped.

He got a mild glare in return, and beamed at the more normal, natural reaction.

"And I suppose death is fair, then, if we go by that principle."

The Kid shrugged.

"Comes to us all. Who can say fairer than that?" The Kid smiled crookedly. "Just because something's fair or not doesn't mean we've got to like it either way. All we've got to do is play the cards we've been dealt to the best of our ability." A sigh. "Not much more we can do."

Hakuba gained a look of concentration, fingers drumming a tattoo beat on the thick armrest of the chair. In a single movement, his feet were firmly planted back on the carpeted floor.

Give a detective a riddle, analogy or mystery of any kind, and they were off. No matter how small it was, or how insignificant. It was actually kind of cute, and he would even go so far as to call it endearing if they didn't go around using it against _him_ so many times.

"Something's been bothering me," the detective said, preoccupied with his train of thought. "Why you are how you are. Why are you still here?"

"Eh, because you're talking to me and we're actually having a conversation? Because you can see me, and I can see you?"

"Ah," said Hakuba, steepling his fingers in front of his face in what the Kid thought, with a sweatdrop, was most probably a movement copied from watching and reading too much Holmes, "but there's the problem. Like I . . . just said. You aren't supposed to be here. You're supposed to be dead," he added in what had likely been meant to be a matter of fact tone, but had come out as a complaint.

"I am dead."

"But hardly gone to meet your maker," Hakuba shot back dryly. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be standing there right now."

"Well maybe I didn't want to."

A single raised eyebrow told the Kid what Hakuba thought of _that_ idea.

"If everyone who died could stay behind as a ghost simply because they didn't want to pass on, the world would be a very full place indeed. No, there has to be something more."

"Like what?"

"Like. . . I don't know! I'm a detective, not an expert in the paranormal. I deal with crimes, usually yours, not..." He slapped a hand against his own forehead. "Damn it, why didn't I think of that before. Your crime."

The Kid blinked.

"Uh, what?"

Hakuba answered, looking dazed and slightly nauseous.

"I. . . your, ah, death. There weren't any witnesses. Apart from the two parties involved, of course."

Oh. That.

"Three."

"What?"

"Three people involved. The guy in the bushes, and the guy who fired the first shot. And me, of course."

"Of course. And you." More sarcasm. There was a brief pause, then – "Tell me. Everything. From the beginning of the heist to the last thing you remember. Any detail might be important, no matter how small."

The Kid sat down suddenly, a flow of white as his cape fluttered down in the midst of the up draught that went unfelt by the rest of the room.

For once, the Kid's voice did not make itself known in his customary suave tones. Instead, the thief used a matter of fact voice, describing events meticulously and without embellishment. Even Kid's retelling of the heist, something that would have usually got him smiling and laughing, full of taunts and jokes, got the same treatment – just the facts, nothing more and nothing less. He told of how he'd escaped, how he'd flown off and yet failed to find anywhere high enough to land before the wind had taken him down and into the open expanse of the park. How he'd touched down, expecting the park to be completely empty at that time of night, and so he'd be able to change back into his civilian appearance as Kuroba Kaito once he was done, seeming, if anyone had been able to follow him, to have simply disappeared into the river and not come out again on the other side, using the water as part of his disappearing trick. He told of how everything had gone wrong, how there had been one guy in the bushes and another elsewhere, and that the moment he'd turned to face down the guy in the bushes, he'd been shot by the one that he hadn't seen.

The rest, he'd said at the end, the police already knew, or should, because he must have left quite the blood trail from the riverbank to wherever it was that he'd actually snuffed it, not to mention a few more bullets.

All the while, he tried to ignore the way that Hakuba's face had been steadily growing paler as he had told what had happened, and steadily greener towards the end.

"Well?" he said at long last, throat not dry from talking so much due to the fact that he didn't need water any more. "Is that enough for your Holmes impersonation, Tantei-san? I could even show you where it happened, if you like. Where exactly I was shot..."

"No. Please, no." Hakuba shuddered, letting out a long breath. "I find it relieving enough to find you without the impressions of your mortal injuries, unlike some certain tales of how ghosts are. If you don't mind, I think I'll leave all of that to the coroner."

Kid opened his mouth as if to say something, but when the words wouldn't come, he closed it again. Something about that thought itched at him for some reason.

"...Do you know how weird it is to be talking about my body like that in front of me? I feel like I'm having an out of body experience, except you can see me."

"Not to mention the fact that it's rather unlikely by this point that you're ever going to return to it."

"Rather unlikely, huh?" Kid snorted. "More like if I did, it'd be an in-the-body experience instead of an out-of-body experience."

"I believe that that is called possession," Hakuba said wearily, with a hint of wariness.

Kid smirked, an eyebrow raised underneath the monocle.

"Ah, but is it when it's your own body?"

They both stared at each other for a long moment, slightly incredulous at the turn the conversation had taken. Then, Hakuba started, at first softly, to chuckle.

"I can't somehow believe that I was having that conversation with you. You are impossible."

But it wasn't the same impossible as before, and the Kid beamed again.

It was strange, bantering back and forth about things both serious and silly – not that death was silly, but it was better to laugh than cry, he'd always believed – with the British detective, unafraid that he could be caught. Because he couldn't be. He didn't even know if he could be touched. Besides, what with how the guy had looked back at the –

Kid stood up with a silent rustle of silk, expression dangerous, and started to pace.

That was it. That was what had caught his attention before. The idea, the very fear he had always been afraid of. Something even worse than fish.

The police knew who he was. Which meant that there was the possibility that as soon as the press were informed of what had happened tonight that was so different to any other night, his face – both of his faces, as well as his name – would be gracing the newspapers in perhaps only a few hours.

The thought positively terrified him.

"Kuroba. "Kuroba! What is it?"

He was stopped dead in his tracks only a moment later, when he hadn't made any sign of stopping or answering.

Both of them stared. But unlike before, there wasn't anything funny about this.

Hakuba had grabbed a hold of his arm.

Ghosts weren't supposed to be able to be held.

But Hakuba had grabbed a hold of his arm.

When the blond should have just felt a shiver, and he should have not felt anything at all.

But it hadn't happened like that. The white sleeve of his arm was creased where Hakuba held it, and he could sure feel the blond's hand still there, almost painfully so.

Freaked, they both jumped apart.

"I didn't think," blurted out Hakuba as the Kid's Poker Face slid down.

------

"Another mystery, or can all ghosts do that, I wonder?" Kid said, sounding more like his heist self than he had ever since Saguru had first seen his transparent self in the police station not too long ago.

He supposed that the question had been rhetoric; assuredly, neither of them were great experts on the paranormal themselves, Saguru less so than Kuroba, even.

Never mind that. They had something else to concentrate on. They could deal with the fallout of slight sensation and its implications later.

"Kuroba. You were worried about something. Tell me what it was. No offence, but I really am the only one who can help you right now. Unless I am wrong in assuming that your earlier acrobatics meant nothing to that effect?"

The Kid shook his head. Somehow, even though Saguru knew and had seen incontrovertible proof that Kuroba Kaito and the Kaitou Kid were one and the same, it was difficult to think of Kuroba as himself at the moment, whether it was due to the newness of the situation or the simple fact that the costume created the character of the person wearing the clothes, just as much as anything else.

A nasty idea hit him, and he resolved to continue calling the Kid 'Kuroba' until he at least took note of that point.

"It's my identity," Kid said freely, only the knowledge to look out for it showing the apprehension and shock still working their way out of the thief's system. "I told you before – I suspect that the ones who killed the first Kid. . . Kuroba Touichi. . . were also the ones there in that park tonight. I think I recognised a voice. I'm not certain. However, if they were, then they'll know about the Kid being dead. From here," and Kid started to move again, would have been pacing holes in the carpet if he'd been putting any pressure on it, and this time Saguru didn't stop him because the magician thought better on his feet while doing something. Not to mention he didn't want a repeat of their previous experience. "From here, we can assume one of two things – one, that they saw my face and they know who I am – was. Two, that they didn't bother, and that they don't know."

Comprehension dawned in Saguru's mind. Kuroba himself was off fairly Scot-free, since he was dead and no one could do anything worse than that to him. Anyone he knew, however...

"You need the papers to cover up the fact that you and the Kid – or rather at the moment, you and Kuroba Kaito – are one and the same."

Kid stopped pacing to glance at Saguru with barely concealed approval and nod.

"They'd stop at nothing to get at anyone they might have thought I'd told their secrets to – and believe me, I knew secrets they wanted to, no wait for it, actually _did_ kill for. My mother's in danger, Hakuba. So are you. And Aoko. And Nakamori. And anyone who looks like they're looking into all of this too damn deep." A thought seemed to occur to him. "Damn. I just hope Tantei-kun doesn't get it in his head to investigate. Chibi's already in way over his head. Doesn't need things any worse."

With one last curious glance – and wondering who on earth 'Tantei-kun' could be, since Nakamori was 'keibu-san' and he himself was 'Tantei-san'. Younger? Possibly, since the Kid used the word chibi, though potentially simply a lot shorter – Hakuba stalked back over to where he had dumped his outdoors coat, pulled it on, as well as his hat, and headed back over to the hallway, where he shoved his shoes back on.

"What're you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm going back out to save your incorporeal skin. You can follow me if you like, but stay out of sight and out of mind while I'm there – unless of course you'd like me to look like I'm going slowly out of my mind for whatever reason anyone would care to put forward."

"Uh, no, I'll be quiet. And. . . thanks."

Saguru looked at the thief sharply, noting the sincerity of those blue eyes and the honesty behind the words. For a moment, that was Kuroba wearing the clothes but not playing the part, but the thief didn't even seem to realise.

"It's nothing. Nothing less than what you would do in my position, I'm sure."

Kuroba was just like that.

It took less than ten minutes to walk back to the station again, and an awful lot longer to explain to the worried constabulary why exactly he was here. Then, of course, he had had to explain himself to Nakamori, who didn't like what he was hearing but grudgingly understood. Strangely enough, it was the Inspector who uncovered yet another difficulty with letting the general public know of the Kid's true identities – the boy's mother would be implicated as an accessory to crime, since she had known, must have, that her family were involved. As the wife of an old friend who, even if the rumour mill was right and he was the first Kid, had been a good man, Nakamori had long since decided that she didn't deserve that. Especially when she had never done anything herself. Losing the last of your family was enough of a punishment.

The fact that the ones who had been after Kid – he had never been given anything any clearer than that, and he didn't know whether that was because Kuroba was afraid he'd let something slip or what – could well com after others was simply a convenient truth that Nakamori could hide behind.

Everything had seemed to proceed well enough, until the very tail end of their conversation. He could clearly see Kuroba out of the corner of his eye somewhere, but the thief was, for once, not trying anything. He tried not to look over in that direction too often.

"Oi, Hakuba-kun. You're her age. What do I say to Aoko?"

Whatever else he had been thinking flew right out of the window. He hadn't forgotten, exactly. Just found so many times that he hadn't thought tonight. The tally just seemed to keep growing, despite his best efforts.

"I. . . I don't know," he admitted. How does the one who can still see the deceased manage to commiserate at the same level as the one who cannot? "Perhaps I can try, though..."

"Eh? Why? Why you?"

_Why you and not me, more like_, he thought.

"Because I go to school with her and I went to school with Kuroba. Because I chased the Kid, too."

_Because I knew both sides of him... not just one. Because she deserves to know exactly what kind of person he was, was trying to be. Because if possible, I'd like for her to know that he's still here. Somehow. Even if she just thinks that he's watching over her. Because I know that that's what he'd do._

Nakamori grunted. Saguru was glad that he had been exposed to Nakamori-isms for long enough that he could translate when a grunt said 'no' and when a grunt said 'yes'. This time, it meant 'yes'. He thought.

Minutes later, he was standing outside, having just told the Kid that he had covered the dead guy's backside for the first, and probably not last, time. Kid looked annoyingly relieved.

Time to burst the nice little bubble.

"Kuroba, I have a question."

The Kid motioned for him go ahead, and he did so.

"Why," he asked in a pained voice, "are you still dressed as the Kaitou Kid?"

Blink, blink. Both visible and half-hidden behind a monocle.

"What do you mean? Of course I'm still Kid. I died as Kid. Why shouldn't I be him?"

"Because," he said, feeling like he was having to explain something elementary to a small child, "you're also Kuroba Kaito. It would be useful at times to be able to see him instead of the thief I chased for going on two years."

Kid crossed his arms.

"And what if I don't want to?"

"_Well maybe I didn't want to." No, there has to be something more_. He just wondered what it was.

"Why wouldn't you want to?"

No answer.

"Kuroba, tell me. Answer the question. Why wouldn't you want to be Kaito again?"

Still nothing. Only Poker Face.

Irritated and on edge by grief and anger and fear, he moved forward with the fluidity of a practitioner of Judo, grabbed the Kid's – Kuroba's – collar before the slippery phantom could spirit himself away. Let it shock him – the other needed it.

"Damn you, Kuroba. Stop hiding behind that blasted Poker Face of yours! Face up to reality, would you?! No matter how much you want to, you can't change what happened tonight, and you can't just put it off through denial! I don't even yet know why you're still here, but by judging your character while you were still alive, I wouldn't say that it was to go around everywhere, moping to yourself and hoping for pity!"

"I wasn't!"

"Prove it to me, then."

"I woke up in the police station hall. I heard Nakamori and the men there talking. I heard it from them that I was dead. I went to Aoko's – but she didn't see me. I practically shouted at her, she didn't hear me. I fell from a tree, I didn't fall properly. I spent the next few hours – I don't know, my watch stopped dead – wandering around. And I couldn't. Do. Anything. Do you know how that _feels_, Hakuba? To not be able to do anything, at all? To not even know if you're able to open a _door_? By the time I found out you could see me, I..." Kuroba-Kid turned his face away, and those white gloves were creased from his fists being clenched. The last was spoken very quietly. "I wanted to just scream. I still do."

Saguru loosed his hand from Kid's collar, letting go. It was odd, touching him now; like clutching at air that stopped his hand and didn't pass on any warmth.

"But you can't as Kid. And you were afraid that you wouldn't be able to hold it in if you were just Kaito."

The Kid gave him a crooked smirk for his effort, but no words were necessary.

With a sigh, he gathered his coat underneath him and sat down on the hard packed surface soil that made up the Ekoda police station's meagre garden in early autumn. Held his head in his hands.

"Go on, then. I won't watch while you're changing, if you want. Let it out. You won't be heard, so I suppose you could shout out at the unfairness for me, too. Because it really isn't..."

----

Inside the station everywhere, for a few seconds, silence reigned supreme as the most loyal Kaitou Kid Task Force members felt varying degrees of shivers run down their spines. As if there had been a voice crying out in pain nearby at a great injustice, before going abruptly silent with what those men and women with very accepting imaginations would call a slightly startled yelp.

Laughter of a sort followed on not long after, however, so no one paid it any mind that had heard it. Most thought that it was probably just kids messing around – mostly harmless. Couldn't be doing too much harm, or they'd be caught on CCTV and brought in by whoever was on security.

Security had been too busy watching footage of one Hakuba Saguru seemingly talking to himself and arguing with thin air. Abruptly sitting down, then not long after seeming to lash out at something like a moth or flying insect that was at around his head height.

For no reason that the security guard on duty in the little cubby hole could see, the flowers on the side the Hakuba boy had just lashed out on suddenly crushed under no apparent weight, and the Hakuba boy seemed to find this hilarious.

The security guard started to wonder at either his or the poor Hakuba boy's sanity, and rubbed at his eyes, thinking that perhaps he'd had a drop too much coffee this time. When he cleared them, there was no one there any more.

Unfortunately, no one thought to corroborate on any of these stories. They simply didn't know that they were linked, or that they should. It was probably for the best.

-----

"Look, Kuroba," Hakuba was saying once they'd calmed down. And he was Kuroba again, now. "Either you're coming with me, or I'm dragging you with me. You can't just not come."

"Oh yes I can. Just watch me. This is me, not coming, floating steadily away like a leaf in the wind..."

"Come off it, Kuroba. You don't float. You're just making a fool out of yourself. More than you usually do, might I add."

"You can't make me."

"No, you do that perfectly well enough on your own."

"That's not what I meant."

"Strange," said Hakuba dryly, "I meant mine both ways."

"Oh ha, ha."

Kaito was not looking forward to this. No, he was not. He didn't even have the Kid's confidence to hide behind this time – and it was all Hakuba's fault. Then again, Hakuba said, using that logic he was so famous for, that it was probably being the Kid the first time around that had caused him to remain invisible.

Aoko hadn't known the Kaitou Kid, except from a distance. Even then, she hadn't liked him. Aoko had only known Kuroba Kaito. Hopefully, Hakuba's deduction would work. Hopefully, the blond would do as he'd said and act as the grounding force between them, or he was afraid he'd be exorcised with mops and fish.

He still hated fish. It depressed him slightly to know that a ghost – which most people were afraid of – could scream at the sight of a carp or cod. But that was life. Or not.

On their way here and after Hakuba had hit him yet _again_ (although this time simply out of annoyance for whatever reason the detective had found, not because he'd started yodelling instead of screaming, even if it did have more or less the same effect) they had started to talk about the idea of Unfinished Business.

Kaito had refuted the idea, saying that he didn't feel like that was what had happened, even if he had left something unfinished. Hakuba had urged him, to _think, then_, and Kaito had put on a show, not exactly wanting to relive his last moments of life like that, but the detective had seen straight through it and threatened to hit him in a special place if he didn't start taking things seriously. Kaito had quickly started to do just that, keeping his distance from the blond as he did so in case Hakuba didn't think he was thinking enough.

He had come up with an idea that had turned him beet red from embarrassment, and which they should have come up with ages ago. He'd muttered his deduction with his shoulders slouched, hands in jeans pockets and head bowed and looking at the pavement, but still Hakuba had heard him say it.

"I didn't wanna die just like – without anyone even knowing who I was."

The blond had looked at him, strangely.

"People know who the Kid is, right?" Hakuba had nodded. "Well, the Kid was my dad first. In a way, I'm just his shadow."

A slight light of the beginning of comprehension had dawned on the detective's face.

"And then there's the fact that practically no one knew I was Kid who wanted to know. Aoko sure didn't," he had said with bitter laughter.

"And Nakamori-keibu denied until now that it was a different Kaitou Kid from nine years ago," Hakuba had said softly. Kaito had nodded. "Yet I, who had suspected you from the first time I met you, could see you. Because of that, in fact, if what we're coming up with is true. Because I knew both sides."

More bitter laughter. "And it took me dying to actually have us talk about it without you hauling me off to jail or me scarpering."

For a long time after that, neither had spoken, mulling over their own thoughts and going over things in their own heads. Then, Kaito had wondered where they were going, which had led to Hakuba saying that he'd told Nakamori that he'd explain things to Aoko-kun, so he thought he'd go off that way now rather than have Nakamori avoid the subject until the next time he was available.

They had argued. A lot. And, for once, Hakuba had seemed to win. He had, Kaito thought glumly, at least gotten what he'd wanted. Which was Kaito following after him towards Aoko's, even if neither of them quite liked the idea of what they were about to do.

But now, thinking about how upset Aoko had been when he'd seen her last, and imagining how things would go if Nakamori himself were to do this. . . His fingers twitched, wanting to clench into fists. Aoko might call him cold like ice cream, and he might even joke about it, but he wasn't. He liked it when she laughed, when she chased him, when she had that look in her eye when he did magic. It made everything else worthwhile, and the idea that he'd make her cry – for whatever reason, no matter whether it was intentional or not – was not a pleasant one.

What made it worse was that it was going to be Hakuba, of all people, who was going to be consoling her over his death, while he was standing there, watching on. _If that's even what tantei-san's planning_, _anyway_, he thought with a hint of suspicion towards the guarded back of the detective as he lead the way.

He sighed. No matter whether or not they liked it, this had to happen. And since neither of them exactly had keys to the Nakamori residence – well, as Kid he'd had lockpicks, but for one people would wonder how Hakuba'd got into the place without using keys or anything, and for another, he didn't even know if it'd work. It could be that being solid to a degree only worked on certain things – like idiotic blond stuck up detectives, for instance.

With a grin, he thought of a way, and it was one already proven to be able to work.

"Oi, Hakuba!" He called out, causing the blond to stop in his tracks so that Kaito could catch up. "Hey, question for you."

"Does this mean that you're coming willingly, then?"

"Oi, oi... don't making sound like you're arresting me. I'm already arrested. Anyway..."

"Yes?"

"You any good at climbing trees?"

Clever Tantei-san had the wits to look wary. Kaito smirked.

"I was the last time I had a chance to try. Why?"

Kaito's smirk only grew.

"Follow me."

-----

If anyone had for any reason happened to be listening from some point onward from the room just above one particular tree, if the sounds had just happened to filter through the already open window, then this is the conversation that they might have heard.

"Hakuba, I never knew you had it in you. You can climb, but you still make it look like you've got a stick up your-"

"Kuroba – shove it."

Snickers.

"Heh. Maybe you've always just been part dryad and you've just never told any of us."

"_Dryad_?"

"Yeah." A slight sound of effort. "You know – those English wood spirits."

"I am about as much a descendant of one of those as you a- were of a monkey. Or bird of some kind."

"Maybe I'm something else, then. Flying monkey!"

"Kuroba, there aren't any flying monkeys."

"Are so! Wizard of Oz."

A pause.

"Are you serious?" There was a hidden '_You read/watched that?_'.

"Dead serious."

"Well," said dryly, "one part of that's true, at least."

"Oi!"

"You asked for it."

Grumbling.

"Dead people jokes. Dead people jokes should have a law against them or something. No fair."

"Well tough." That smirk was audible as well as visible. "It appears that I have more weight in this argument."

"Damn it, you-!" A light grunt, and a rustle of what sounded like wind through leaves. "All right. You asked for it. If you can do dead people jokes, then I can do live people jokes."

Another disbelieving pause.

"And how exactly would you plan on this? _Are_ there any?"

"Sure there are! I just. . . don't know many. Never really needed them until now. But now – _I see live people_."

Deadpanned. "It doesn't work."

"Shaddup."

"I suppose that's just life, for you."

"Life," the word came out as a mock snarl, "_don't_ talk to me about life."

"Rather hard to do right now, Kuroba. . . do you want to go in first or shall I?"

"I think I'll stay right here."

"Oh no, you're not. You're going in there if I have to drag you. And don't forget that I can."

Nevertheless, there were a number of scuffling sounds, and first one tree bark scraped hand and then another levered the irritated blond onto the window ledge. For a moment he just sat there, trying to catch his breath. He was caught by surprise, however, when a darker patch of shadow suddenly covered him.

The one who just might have been able to hear all of that, one Nakamori Aoko in flannel pyjamas in person and hair in even more of a disarray than usual, had her hands on her hips. The Kid plushie had been rapidly hidden the moment she had recognised the voices

"Hakuba-kun? Could you please tell me why you're at my window? And what Kaito's still doing out there if he's the one who put you up to this?"

-----

Saguru's eyes widened in shock at the possible meaning of her words. He clamped down on the reaction, however, as it might not have been as he had assumed, and good detectives did not assume.

"Did you hear him, then?"

There. Easy enough to take that either way.

"Oh, I heard him all right. Loud and clear. So he might as well come out and fess up to whatever it was he somehow managed to talk you into."

Well, that made things easier and harder. But if she could hear him, then she could possibly also see him, too. . .

With a smile full of faintly grim determination, he manoeuvred himself so that he had a good, solid grounding inside the room in able to lean out of the window and _grab_ at the solid thin air that he knew just had to still be there and pull just so, dragging one yelping Kuroba inside the room and, unfortunately due to the laws of physics, right on top of him.

Aoko started to giggle. Saguru himself didn't find it particularly funny, as he was currently the one at the bottom of the dogpile, a position which he had been lucky enough to have avoided for just about all of Kid's career. . . only to find himself there post mortem and post Kid heist, with the Kid not even in uniform. It was all very depressing, even as Kuroba was clambering off him, snickering.

"Oh, very funny. Ha bloody ha. Let's all have a good laugh at _me_."

"Oh come on, Hakuba – now you're the one sounding like Marvin."

The grin would have practically lit up the room, if it hadn't been ever so slightly translucent. Still, it was Kuroba, and he couldn't help but smile just slightly back, if only for Aoko's sake.

Aoko, who was now looking at least a bit more relaxed than when Saguru had first seen her, laughter dying down. There was still an air of suspicion around her, though, as she crossed her arms with was probably supposed to have been a straight face but was marred by a smile that kept twitching, wanting to laugh again.

"All right, what was it you came here for, then? I..." her expression faltered, the laugh vanishing. "Tou-chan called earlier. He said something went really wrong with the heist, but nothing was on the TV or the radio, so I don't know what it could've been. But," she said, looking hopeful, "it can't have been too bad, right? Or else you two would've been right in the thick of it, and you'd both still be there, right?"

She looked between both of them, and Saguru felt vaguely ill. He looked over at Kuroba, only to find that the phantom magician had stayed sat on the floor, his two feet meeting sole to sole instead of having his legs crossed. He was playing with something small in his hands, letting it flow through his fingers but never fall.

"It was bad, alright," the magician said, cheery tone belying his words. He didn't so much as glance at the other two. "What'd your dad say?"

Aoko scowled.

"Only that something bad had happened, and that he was going to be late. That's all. Except he doesn't usually ring at all, he usually just gets kinda involved and forgets to say. So I worried, but now you're both here, so there's nothing to worry about any more. Right?"

_Wrong. All of this is so wrong_. But he had to do it, because Kuroba had just dropped his coin. The face was the same, but then again it hadn't changed ever since he'd stopped laughing after coming into the room. _Poker Face_, a part of him understood now. _He's not showing it, but_...

"I'm sorry, Aoko-kun. I really am sorry."

"W-what? What for? Something. . . did something really go wrong? It wasn't Tou-chan, was it? 'Cause it was him who called me, and I'm sure that if anything'd happened to him, one of the other guys he works with would've called me and told me what was going on, and . . . it wasn't Tou-chan. Was it."

He shook his head, risking a concerned glance at Kuroba, who was as still as a statue.

"No, it wasn't," he said softly. "It was the Kid."

The news hit her instantly, her hand flying to her mouth in horror.

"K-_Kid_? Kaitou Kid? Are you sure? What happened?"

"As sure as Kuroba's sitting there, yes. As to what happened..." he hesitated. He didn't know entirely what the police could figure out from the . . . body. He also didn't want to give her too much information. "We think it was snipers," he said in a dead, flat voice. "Other than that, I haven't been told anything."

Aoko backed up hard, sat down on her bed with a thump.

"But – but you're both _here_ still. You were _laughing_," she said, accusing.

Kuroba's eyes widened, staring at her as if he'd never seen her before.

"Thought you didn't like the Kid," he muttered.

Aoko shook her head.

"I don't like him because he takes Tou-chan away from me. He steals and he makes fools out of nice people like Hakuba-kun and Tou-chan. But . . . I don't _really_ hate him. Not..." She sniffed. "I knew it had to be something bad, but I didn't think it could be really bad, and now you're saying it is, and-"

"O-oi, Aoko! Stop that, will you?" Kuroba had finally gotten up off the floor, gone over to where Aoko was, bending down slightly in front of her. "Don't cry, stupid. I'm still here."

"And, I thought you'd be more upset. You really love the Kid after all, don't you?"

"Eh... what can I say? I've got a big heart. I'll go on."

From his sideways perspective on the conversation in front of him, Saguru could see both the profile of a grin and possibly waggling eyebrows. After a moment during which he took in the words the magician had just said, he aimed a glare in the other's direction.

"You did _not_ just quote 'Titanic'."

The grin turned around, so that it faced in his direction.

"Nope, but I can if you want me to...?"

"No. Thank you, but please no."

"Kai_to_. . ." it had sounded like she was going to berate him some more, but she ended up trailing off. "Um, Kaito? Why can I practically see right through you? That's. . . just another one of your tricks, right? Like that one with the mirrors and the magician that I saw on TV with you last week..."

Kuroba backed off slightly.

"Oh, that, um, this? No, ah – that is. . . ah, hell. How do I say this. Hakuba, shut up."

Saguru nodded, not very amused at all, but rather morbidly interested instead.

"You see, it's like this. You remember that heist, um. . . the second one Hakuba went to. When he was still a complete prat who went around in that poncy Sherlock Holmes cosplay. And Hakuba, stay shut up." About to say something in defence of his Inverness and Deerstalker, he closed his mouth with a glower. "You remember how Kid sounded like a girl on that heist, and you said he was gay?"

Aoko nodded slowly, as Saguru himself remembered the incident with a sweatdrop. Especially knowing what he did now, he couldn't figure out who that other person had been, but could recall Aoko's comment, and how much it must have embarrassed Kuroba. Who had at the time been handcuffed to his own wrist.

"Well," continued Kuroba uncomfortably, "that really wasn't the Kid."

"Who was it, then?"

"Doesn't matter, all right? Just wasn't Kid." A long and unnecessary breath taken for calming measures. "Next point. And Hakuba? Not a single word."

"I wasn't thinking of it," he said dryly.

"Good. Well. You remember that time before Hakuba came, wasn't all that long after Kid had started back up... You suspected me and dragged me out to Tropical Land and into that movie theatre at the same time as the heist."

He could see where this was going, and his eyes widened. But he couldn't say anything.

"I remember that! We watched the movie together, and afterwards, when we came out, Tou-chan was on the big screen, saying that he hadn't caught Kid this time... Kaito? What's that got to do with anything?"

"Lots," the magician said deadpan. "Balloon-san said he liked what he saw of the movie, but that he'd prefer it if he hadn't had to stand in. The movie wasn't that bad, though!" The affected cheer could probably cause cavities and be detected on radar from a few hundred miles away as Kuroba said this, even so. "I went to see it earlier that week – you gave me a few days, so just in case..."

Aoko stared at them. First Kuroba, then him, and since he didn't say anything – not knowing whether or not Kuroba's silence ban had ended or not, and not knowing what he'd say even if he'd been able to – and then back at Kuroba again, before bursting out into tears.

"Aoko – hey, Aoko!"

"Aoko-kun." He stood, dusted himself off properly, went over to them. There wasn't much he could do now, but... "Aoko-kun, listen to me." Her sobs lessened slightly. "Can you look at me?" Her fingers parted slightly over her eyes and her head tilted up ever so much, but it was just enough. Even if he could scarcely see her face for hands and hair. "Aoko-kun, keep this in mind. Kuroba. . . Kaito is still here. Granted, he's somewhere else as well, but he's still here. Making trouble and inane jokes."

"Yeah, I. . . aw, damn it. I'm just – I'm _sorry_, Aoko. But I don't know what _else_ I can say. I'm so, _so sorry_..."

"But. . . I can see _right through you_."

"Occupational hazard of being a Phantom Kaitou, can't do anything about it. Wish I could, always feels like people are staring right at me and out the other side..."

Saguru rolled his eyes, but Aoko seemed to have frozen in place at the first outright spoken truth – that Kaito had been the Kid, and that he was now a phantom in more than one way. Dead. Not just temporarily taking leave of his body.

Saguru sighed, and felt the night's events finally begin to catch up with him, culminating in a yawn that he couldn't keep down, no matter how hard he tried. He checked the pocketwatch he still carried with him – ten minutes past five in the morning. No wonder he was so tired. He'd been up since early that morning for school, his attention kept on classes and Kuroba until school had ended, at which point he had gone home to get changed and do research before the heist itself, and when the heist had come around, he had been running on concentrated caffeine at past one o'clock in the morning. Anything after that had been adrenaline and racing emotions that hadn't let him rest.

And now it was catching up to him, his body rebelling and not wanting to go any further, his mind mutinying against everything that had happened. At the worst time, too. But if he didn't find somewhere with either a couch or a bed soon, he would end up passed out on Nakamori Aoko's bedroom floor, and he didn't think that Aoko-kun, Nakamori senior or Kuroba would be best pleased with him.

"Aoko-kun...?" She nodded. Good. Still getting a response. "You know my number. Anything – whatever reason – and I'll answer. So long as I'm awake." He illustrated his point with another unintentional yawn. Kuroba looked over at him with concern, likely thinking about the fact that they had come up via the tree, and that it would be quite a bit harder when that much less alert and awake. "Other than that, I'll be back tomorrow via more conventional means. If you don't mind the idea, that is."

She shook her head. He took it to mean that she didn't.

"Wh-where're you going...?"

He looked back, and was surprised to find Kuroba following after him, that same concerned expression still on his face.

"I thought that you would want to stay with Aoko-kun a while longer," he said flatly.

"Would've," the ghost said lightly, "but I thought I'd tag along and make sure you didn't somehow turn into a suddenly _flying_ white horse, Hakuba."

"I'm touched."

"You're welcome."

_What have I gotten myself into?_

------

AN: Eek. I now qualify for the meme 'It's over _nine thousand!!!!!_". Which it is. (Nearer ten thousand, actually.)

If anyone's wondering, it's still very angst-y, because it's still set on the very night Kid (Kaito) died. But there are plenty of references to pop culture and comedies, too...

And dead people jokes. Don't forget the dead people jokes.


End file.
